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Video Library

Since 2002 Perimeter Institute has been recording seminars, conference talks, public outreach events such as talks from top scientists using video cameras installed in our lecture theatres. Perimeter now has 7 formal presentation spaces for its many scientific conferences, seminars, workshops and educational outreach activities, all with advanced audio-visual technical capabilities.

Recordings of events in these areas are all available and On-Demand from this Video Library and on Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive (PIRSA). PIRSA is a permanent, free, searchable, and citable archive of recorded seminars from relevant bodies in physics. This resource has been partially modelled after Cornell University's arXiv.org.

Accessibly by anyone with internet, Perimeter aims to share the power and wonder of science with this free library.

Few, if any, papers have attracted as much attention as Einsteins June paper on the Special Theory of Relativity and no equation of physics has become part of common discourse except for the equation Einstein presented in his September paper: E = mc2. The concepts of space and time are ubiquitous in physics and, since the Special Theory of Relativity fundamentally altered these concepts, the impact of the June paper on physics has been pervasive. With the additional assertion, made in the June paper, that the speed of light is a constant for all observers, time and space became relative.

This talk will take you on a tour through the mind of Albert Einstein, focussing on his discoveries of 1905 and the vital role his theories play in many of today\'s technologies. Damian Pope, Einstein, impact, modern technology, light, time, space, special relativity, time dilation, length contraction, curiosity

In 1905, there were prominent scientists who did not believe in atoms. Einstein did. His April and May papers were motivated in part to support the concept of atoms. The April paper, Einsteins dissertation and one of his most cited papers, shows how the dimensions of a sugar molecule, suspended in water, can be determined. His method had many practical applications, hence the citations. In the May paper, a pollen particle took the place of a sugar molecule. For decades, the irregular, zig-zagging motion of pollen particles was a mystery.

Einsteins March paper, the only paper that Einstein himself called revolutionary, directly challenged the firm beliefs of all physicists. With compelling evidence in their support, physicists regarded the nature of light as a closed chapter: light was a continuous electromagnetic wave. Einstein countered this entrenched belief with the claim that light was a stream of discontinuous, isolated particles. The age-old conundrum of continuity vs. discontinuity was again called into play.

Just who was Albert Einstein? And what did he achieve? This talk will introduce some of his amazing discoveries and examine where curiosity can lead you. Einstein, discovers, curiosity, impact, inventions, light, photons, Damien Pope, space, time, relativity, speed of light

Stephen Kern will set the stage for the Miraculous Year with an examination of the general cultural climate surrounding Einsteins eventations of 1905. Taking the fact that Einsteins most important paper begins with a discussion of simultaneity, Kern will consider how a variety of developments in the culture of the period involved a reworking of the experience of time and space, creating new ways of thinking about and experiencing simultaneity.

The achievements of 19th Century physicists stand shoulder to shoulder with those of their 20th Century successors. Physics, per se, did not exist in 1800, but a century later, physics not only existed, but was regarded as the model for all sciences. During the 19th Century, the physics that dominates current introductory textbooks was brought to completion.

Synchronization phenomena are abundant in nature, science, engineering and social life. Synchronization was first recognized by Christiaan Huygens in 1665 for coupled pendulum clocks; this was the beginning of nonlinear sciences. First, several examples of synchronization in complex systems are presented, such as in organ pipes, fireflies, epilepsy and even in the (in)stability of large mechanical systems as bridges. These examples illustrate that, literally speaking, subsystems are able to synchronize due to interaction if they are able to communicate.